TODAY'S VINDICATOR HEADLINES | FRIDAY

Youngstown Board of Education voted 4-2 at a special meeting Thursday to place an emergency renewal of the school district’s 10.7-mill property tax levy on the November ballot. School board members voting yes were President Brenda Kimble, Vice President Michael Murphy, Tina Cvetkovich and Ronald Shadd, Kimble’s son. Opposed were Jackie Adair and Dario Hunter. Board member Corrine Sanderson was absent. The levy costs the owner of a $50,000 home $164 annually.

A mom who nearly lost her son to drowning at Mosquito Lake State Park beach Monday afternoon started a GoFundMe page for the family of Christine Beheler, the 41-year-old Niles woman who saved the boy but died. “I want to do all that I can to help,” said Jessica Marvin said. “My son is still here because of her selfless act.” Marvin said her son and daughter were invited to go swimming with Beheler and her family at the lake. Beheler was her son's best friend's mother. The GoFundMe page is at www.gofundme.com/f/christine-saved-my-son039s-life-now-help-her-family. The Beheler family is also trying to rehome its 8-year-old dog, a shepherd mix named Max.

Youngstown’s director of community planning and economic development, the Youngstown Area Goodwill Industries’ mission-services director, and the vice president for policy programs with the Washington, D.C.-based Aspen Institute took part in a 90-minute forum Thursday evening at Stambaugh Auditorium titled “Closing the Gap: Building Opportunity in the Valley,” organized by the City Club of the Mahoning Valley. The event explored the erosion of the American ideals of hard work resulting in livable wages and better educational opportunities. The decline is acutely prevalent in Mahoning Valley. they said, which has felt the loss of high-paying manufacturing jobs, wage stagnation, rapid technological advancement and structural racism that has decreased opportunities for many minorities. One strategy aimed at tackling such barriers has been greater social supports and services to walk people through the process of finding and maintaining meaningful employment, one panelist said.

An ex-St. Elizabeth Boardman Hospital emergency room doctor is returning to Ohio to face charges of raping a young girl. Dr. Albert Aiad-Toss of Canfield, waived his Thursday extradition hearing in Broward County, Fla., where he has remained jailed without bond since his arrest in July at a Florida airport. The 51-year-old physician is now heading to Ashland County, where he was indicted last month after being accused of meeting a 12-year-old Ashland County girl for sex earlier this year, using an online “network of young teens,” and traveling to Ashland County on at least one occasion, prosecutors said.

Campbell has reached an agreement with Aqua Ohio to sell its water system to the company for $7.5 million. In addition to paying for the plant and the millions of dollars the facility will need in order to achieve compliance under Environmental Protection Agency regulations, the company is also absorbing the city’s eight full-time water department employees. Aqua Ohio will take over operations in January.

State Sens. Sean J. O’Brien and Michael Rulli will travel today to the headquarters of Workhorse Group Inc. to discuss with company leaders their potential interest in purchasing the idled General Motors plant in Lordstown. O’Brien of Bazetta, D-32nd, said their last meeting in May was very productive, and they hope to continue making progress with an eye toward bringing jobs back to the Valley. Workhorse, a manufacturer of all-electric utility trucks, and an affiliated entity have expressed interest in purchasing the Lordstown plant. Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday in Lancaster, Ohio, that Workhorse secured financing this week to move forward to keep jobs in Lordstown, but local officials said they don’t know what Pence is talking about.

Attorneys for Menards of Warren have asked a Trumbull County Common Pleas Court magistrate to order Girard demolition company DiPaolo Industrial Development to pay $294,201 in damages to Menards. Magistrate Jami Bishop said in a May ruling that DiPaolo breached its contract with Menards and must pay the amount Menards paid another company to complete DiPaolo’s demolition work at the site of the store. The ruling means DiPaolo is not entitled to any of the money it sought from Menards. DiPaolo's attorney says Menards is not entitled to anything.